


Second Chances, Firsts and Profanity

by koalathebear



Series: Fragments Prism [9]
Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kid Fic, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-21
Updated: 2014-01-21
Packaged: 2018-01-09 13:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1146320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little scribble that hopped into my head to deal with:</p><p>1.  Me wanting Quinn to have another encounter with his Baby Mama Julia Diaz<br/>2.  A silly/fluffy little baby fic idea that prompted by a recent gifset and video compilation on tumblr :)</p><p>Non-canon.  I guess it's part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1089542/chapters/2192646">Fragments</a> universe but you don't have to have read those Fragments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances, Firsts and Profanity

_Philadelphia_

"You look good, Johnny," Julia told him with that faint drawl in her voice. She put the mug of coffee down on the table in the diner and he could see the stain of dark red lipstick on the rim. Her thick dark hair was pulled back tightly from her face and her dark eyes were as huge and expressive as he remembered.

"Thanks. You, too, Jules," he told her. He cleared his throat slightly. "What'd you want to talk about?" he asked her.

"About little Johnny …," she replied. "Colin wants to adopt him … legally."

Quinn's hand tightened slightly on the handle of his mug and he swallowed hard. "I see."

"Not asking your permission Johnny … but I just thought you should know."

Quinn nodded. 

Julia stared down at the table. She exhaled slowly. "Let him have a surname, Johnny … not just mine. Your real name doesn't even exist anymore."

"I understand," Quinn told her, his smile tight and wintery. "Will you ever tell him who his real father is?"

"Oh Johnny," Julia whispered,"Colin _is_ his real father … there's more to being a dad than just fathering a kid. Colin was there when he started talking … crawling … when he took his first steps. Colin taught him how to ride a bike. He reads him bedtime stories … looks after him when he's sick … sits with him after he's had a nightmare."

"You think I don't know that, Jules?" he asked her, his throat tight. "You never even wanted me to see him ... how was I ever going to learn what his favourite food was? What he likes, what he doesn't like …"

"And you know why that was," Julia told him gently. "What was the point of him getting to know you when we didn't know when you'd be around … if you'd be around at all. What was the point confusing him? It wasn't fair to him."

"Your call," Quinn said tightly, his body tense and his eyes dark and filled with regret.

Julia's eyes were filled with tears. "I still miss you Johnny," she told him simply. You didn’t get over someone like him easily … ever … "But you weren't ever the type to stick around … you're out there making the world a safer place … but little Johnny needs a dad and I'm not sure you're cut out to be a dad …"

He paid for their coffees and walked her to her car. 

"How are you doing?" Julie asked him, her eyes searching his face. "I know that things were bad for a while …" she said, referring to the day he had come to the park and said with tears in his eyes that he wished he could go back and do everything over …

"I get by, always do," he told her with a wry smile.

"I know you do," she said putting her hand on his arm. "Are you married yet? Seeing someone?"

He shook his head with a smile. "Lone wolf."

"I don't believe you, you've never had a shortage of women coming after you. There must be someone you like."

He hesitated for a moment but still shook his head. "No," he told her and she looked unconvinced.

"Thanks for the coffee," she told him and stood on tip toe to cup his face in her hands and press a lingering kiss to his mouth. 

He stood still, arms hanging by his side as she kissed him and when she drew back, her eyes were filled with tears. "You take care of yourself, you hear?"

He nodded and watched her drive away, his throat tight as he tried to swallow. 

*

_Istanbul_

The baby started making cooing noises followed by a loud and delighted chuckle.

"You talking to me, squirt? Deciding it's finally time to end the babbling and start enunciating like a real person?" he demanded, staring into the baby's huge, inquiring grey eyes.

"Give her a break, Quinn. She's not even 10 months old yet," Carrie remarked from where she was sitting at her desk, poring over charts and reports. It was the weekend and notionally a day of rest but as ever, Carrie's workaholic tendencies prevailed.

By contrast, Quinn was lying nearby on the floor of the family room, the baby perched precariously on his stomach, punching her fists at him ecstatically as she made excited huffing noises.

"No Carrie – she's trying to communicate. She's going to talk. It's a momentous occasion – put those damned reports aside for one second to witness history in the making!" Quinn announced exultantly as he sat up and tossed the baby into the air for a moment, making her shriek with laughter.

Carrie laughed, put down her pen and walked over to the rug where Quinn was sitting and dropped to the ground cross-legged beside him. 

"It might be the weekend but I have a meeting with Javadi in three days … I need to prepare."

"We're very prepared," he told her shortly.

She watched as the baby crawled over him, grabbing his hair, clambering onto his shoulder and clinging to him tightly as she blinked owlishly at her mother, her blonde hair forming a tousled halo around her flushed face.

"I take it she's been fed?"

"She had her bottle an hour ago," Quinn told her. While Carrie had breast-fed for several months following the birth, she had eventually switched to formula so that she could continue to take her anti-psychotic medication. Risking a manic episode while in Istanbul wasn't something she cared to do.

"Good, let's hope the little brat doesn't wake everyone up again tonight," Carrie muttered fervently.

"It was just a nightmare," Quinn told her, holding the baby against him as she continued to make huffing noises at him earnestly.

In recent weeks, she had been on the cusp of making 'ma ma' noises and even 'da da' when staring at Quinn, much to the bemusement of all. 

"She thinks you're her fucking dad," Carrie had remarked with a twisted smile on her face, staring from the baby to Quinn's face. She barely recognised him when he was with the baby, face soft and unguarded

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"No…but do you?"

"Fuck no," Quinn had retorted as he put the baby down to change a particularly disgusting diaper. 

Sitting on the rug near Quinn, it was hard to believe that the angelic creature in his arms could scream the roof down when displeased. "What would she be thinking about to have nightmares, I wonder," Carrie mused, looking mildly perplexed.

"No idea … she wakes up cold and alone and probably freaks out."

The baby's nanny slept in a nearby room but the baby had her own room … as did Carrie… as did Quinn. She was well-aware that their living arrangements were causing eyebrows to be raised all over the place. Half the staff assumed they were fucking, the other half were not convinced and laying bets about when the pair would hook up. Carrie found herself wondering the same thing sometimes.

Quinn was entitled to have his own living quarters, but he had elected to commandeer Carrie's spare bedroom – it was easier to keep an eye on her and the baby.

"We have security – you're not my fucking security guard," Carrie had pointed out when he had inspected her living quarters.

"I can sleep on the sofa if you don't want to give up the spare room," he had told her mildly.

"That's not the issue. It's fine for you to be in the spare room. We're not in danger."

"Yes you fucking are and I'd prefer to be here rather than on the other side of the compound if it's all the same to you."

It wasn't the same at all. It was actually pretty nice … it was also very unsettling at times. Though they didn't share a bed, the mere fact that they shared living quarters was surprisingly intimate. Sometimes it felt as though they were a family. Carrie would be feeding the baby and glance up to see Quinn sitting on the sofa, his book open in his hand but staring at her and the baby instead of the words on the page.

"I should charge you rent," Carrie had once muttered.

"Our housing is all paid for by the United States Government."

"What the fuck happens when you start dating? Bringing home strange women," she muttered.

He had grinned at her and raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Afraid you'll be jealous."

"Of course not," she had retorted even as he had taken a step towards her with a knowing smile.

She had put a hand against his chest to hold him back but he had simply taken it and raised it to his lips, giving it a light and teasing kiss before she pulled it back as if burnt.

"Don't flirt with me, Quinn," she had told him firmly and he had smiled.

"I won't be bringing any strange women here," he had promised her. "Same as you won't be bringing any strange men here either."

"Is that a fact?" she had demanded and he had nodded.

The smile had vanished from his face when she had slid her arm around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers for a long, hard kiss that left them both shaking and wanting a lot more.

"Don't tease," he had told her hoarsely when she had pulled back.

"Or what?"

"I'll throw you over my shoulder and carry you into the bedroom and fuck you senseless," he had warned her.

Her eyes had darkened and she had spoken provocatively. "I'm not ready yet – remember?"

"I'm trying to," he had told her grimly and then the baby had broken the tension by crying and Quinn had gone to her.

No one could settle the baby quite the way Quinn could. Gülten could soothe her eventually but Quinn would simply look at her a certain way and murmur at her in a low soothing voice and the baby would curl against him as if she knew she was safe. Lucky her.

Then again, although technically Carrie was a single mother - it never really felt that way. If it wasn't Quinn, then she had Fara and Virgil fussing over her and the baby … even Max turned out to have an unexpected streak of gentleness and could be found with the baby sitting in his lap as he crooned songs by his favourite country singers to her. 

Virgil had his own theories about early childhood development and enrichment and spent a great deal of time reading textbooks and the news to the baby. His one-sided conversations with her were in depth and animated and he never talked down to the baby. Fara insisted on speaking Farsi to the baby and everyone was placing bets as to whether the baby's first words would be in English, Farsi or Turkish.

Carrie spent a great deal of time with the baby bemused at the thought that she had helped to create this little human being that stared at her curiously and depended on her for everything. She had gone from being a helpless, howling red-faced little blob to being a young human whose eyes widened with comprehension and who looked as if she might want to say something had she only possessed the ability to speak.

Most astonishing of all was Quinn. He not only read fairy tales to the baby, he read all of his favourite poems and plays to her, political treatises and essays and as Carrie stretched out resting on the couch, she would listen to Quinn's calm voice reading. He coaxed Carrie into singing nursery rhymes in her off-key, wavery voice, a marked contrast to his much more tuneful and melodic voice.

"I don't sing. Ever," she had told him flatly.

"Christ Carrie, she's a fucking baby – she's not going to judge and neither will I."

Before she knew it, she was singing. She was never going to win any awards but these days she could harmonise pretty well with Quinn and their versions of "Three Blind Mice" and "Rose" were getting pretty polished with all of the practice.

They had both been present when they baby had first started crawling – or rather creeping – at eight months. Quinn had insisted on documenting it and the mood of jubilation and celebration in the team had almost rivalled the exultation they had shared when Fara had recently recruited a new and highly placed asset.

"Do you really think she's trying to talk, Quinn?" Carrie asked, staring at her daughter's determined face closely. "She might have fucking gas or something."

Quinn gave her a withering look and picked up the stuffed toy known quite imaginatively as "Mr Frog". It was the baby's favourite toy apart from the toy known as 'Dog'.

"Frog? Mr Frog? You trying to say Frog?" Quinn asked with a grin on his face as he waved Mr Frog in front of the baby's face. There was something so endearing and ridiculous about him that it took all of Carrie's will power not to pounce on him then and there.

The baby puffed out her cheeks as she huffed at him and then with a cherubic smile, spoke quite distinctly. "Fuck!"

Quinn and Carrie froze and shot aghast stares at one another.

"Did she – ?" Carrie demanded at the same time Quinn demanded "Did I hear her - ?"

The baby stared at them oblivious, gurgling and cooing and not making any further attempt to speak.

Carrie and Quinn exchanged slightly sheepish looks at one another, each knowing that they were equally to blame.

There was a light knock on the door and Fara stepped in and glanced at the forced smiles on their faces in perplexity.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, her large dark eyes filled with gentle curiosity at the expressions on their faces.

"Yes," both Carrie and Quinn exclaimed at the same time.

Fara reached down for the baby. " _Nooreh cheshmam_ ," she crooned adoringly, giving her a kiss. "It's time for her Farsi lessons," she told them, smiling as she walked back to her own quarters singing nursery rhymes in a soft voice.

"Fuck," Carrie muttered in disbelief.

"We've got to stop swearing so much," Quinn told her, rising to his feet and reaching down to help pull Carrie to her feet.

"Let's not put that word in her 'Baby's First whatever' diary that Maggie gave us," Carrie muttered. "How do you propose we reduce the profanity, Quinn?" Carrie asked him quizzically.

He started grinning at her. "The swearing might be stress-related. We probably just need to reduce the tension in the air," he suggested.

Her lips twitched. "Any suggestions?" she asked him, reaching out and grabbing his hand walking casually towards the bedroom.

"I might have a few ideas that we could try out," he told her with mock gravity.

"Fara and the baby will be gone for hours," Carrie told him soberly. "I suggest we get started."

The bedroom door slammed shut behind them and Carrie's shriek of laughter followed by muffles giggles suggested that Quinn, ever resourceful, had found a way to banish the tension forever.

_"Fuck!"_

"With pleasure."

end

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by [this gifset](http://koalathebear.tumblr.com/post/73358991003/alienstarbabe-carrie-and-quinn-would-be-good) and [this video compilation of Carrie swearing](http://koalathebear.tumblr.com/post/72928265510/hellyeahomeland-hellyeahomeland-this-is-the).
> 
> There is also [this gifset](http://quinnandcarrie.tumblr.com/post/105634599730/homeland-carrie-quinn-season-2).
> 
> It made me think: "And Baby Mathison will grow up with the F-word as her first word ever and Carrie and Quinn will exchange sheepish grins and blame the other for it but they both know that they are both equally culpable :)"


End file.
